February 21, 2009

Among other things this week (working every day, driving kids to school & activities, doing my daily wii fit training and keeping our home in order), I finished a couple of pages for my little plastic pocket "pieces of me" album.

What can I say? I'm a girly girl, no point fighting it! lol

..........................

I also completed a 12x12 SCRAPBOOK LAYOUT!!! Can you believe it's my first actual scrapbook page for the year? Wow! I've really fallen off the wagon!

I hid the journaling in a tiny manilla envelope, the "YEAR" letters are attached to the back of it, then I glued a coaster board circle and a chipboard 7 to a spare journaling tag which I chopped up it fit into the envelope.

...............................

My next project is to make Chelsea a costume for her calisthenics graceful solo. Her first comp is in 4 weeks, so I thought I'd better pull my finger out and get sewing. I haven't even bought the fabric yet, let alone the sequins. UGH! I love making her costumes, but I always feel a bit daunted about making something special. On the positive side, her solo is starting to look really lovely, the music she's using is from the movie Atonement and it's heartbreakingly beautiful. There'll be tears from the Mummy!

February 14, 2009

I know I'm not the only person who is feeling just awful about last weekends bushfire tragedy here in Victoria. Everywhere I've been this week, everyone has been saying how bad they feel. I can't imagine how bad it must be for people who have lost loved ones, their pets, their homes. I just feel so sad for all those poor people. It's going to be a long long road to recovery and it breaks my heart to think of what they are going through. It makes your problems feel small, it makes you appreciate everything you have in life and it makes you want to hug your loved ones just a little tighter, doesn't it?

..................................

Today is Valentine's day, so I made Peter this card and last night I snuck out to hide it behind the steering wheel in his car, so he would find it when he drove to his regular golf game this morning. hehe

To make the design on the front of the card, I just about straight copied one of the techniques we learned at Create08 with Heidi Swapp. I masked off the heart shape and filled it with ink, then laid the dotty mask over and applied more ink, finally I removed the dot mask and stamped a damask flourish with brown ink inside the heart, before removing the mask to reveal the design.

It's an odd shaped card so I had to make an envelope to match out of some left over Jenni Bowlin patterned paper (and lots more ink).

This morning when I walked into my ensuite bathroom I was greeted by this sweet posie of roses from Peter. I love that he chose a colour co-ordinated jar to put them in!

It's impossible not to feel affected by the recent tragedy, but today I feel lucky and I feel so grateful for the easy life I have and grateful to have my family safe and sound here in our home.

Peace and love to all the bushfire victims and if you see a firey, give them a hug. x

February 06, 2009

I decided to call my little plastic pocket album "Pieces of Me" because it's turning out to be so random (just like the thoughts in my brain). I still haven't made the front cover, but I think I'll leave that 'til last. Here's a few more pages I've made so far:

This one is the facing page to the bird page. I finally wrote the journaling in permanent ink so I could share it with you. I like the shadow effect that comes from mounting some of the stuff on the outside of the pocket.

This is one of my favourite scrapping techniques. Grag a handfull of left over scraps, hand cut some strips and stack them on the page to make an interesting background. The green check card is the back of a journaling block (October Afternoon).

This is the facing page, the second part of the story, so I used the same technique.

February 01, 2009

I've been working on a mini album project. Margie gave me a clear, pocket 6x4 photo album for Christmas and I'm using it to create a really random book filled with my opinions and favourites right now. It's a bit difficult to photograph because the pages have to be left in the pockets as some of the elements are on the outside of the pocket, but anyhoo, here's a few of the pages I've made so far:

The question stickers are from Sandylion. I just plucked a few off the sheet and slapped them down on the page. Patterned Papers are Scenic Route and Basic Grey.

For this page I used staz on ink to stamp on a Heidi Swap bird sticker, but after I removed the bird from the centre, I decided I liked the outline and clear portion better so I stuck it to a torn page from an old book and mounted it on pink cardstock. Some of the word stickers along the edge are attached on the outside of the pocket for interest.

Another torn page from a vintage book, mounted on patterned cardstock. The embellishment is from a sheet of journaling cards (Theresa Collins). I made up my own quote for the corresponding page on the other side.

It's a fun project and I've been creating new pages for it every day. I'll share more with you as they are complete.

Is it really 1st of February already? January seems to be the fastest month of the year, don't you think?

Peter has been on holidays since Christmas, but finally went back to work on Thursday. Chelsea had a study skills day at school on that day too. The school doesn't have air con in the classrooms, just in a few rooms so, with the incredible heat wave we've just had in Melbourne (it was 43 that day) to say it was unpleasant would be a massive understatement! In fact Chelsea and Harry were both supposed to officially start school on Friday (co-incidentally the first day back is only for Year 12 and Year 7) but because of the 45 degree heat forecast, they cancelled the entire day for Y12 and modified the Y7 programme to end at midday.

Here's my high school boy ready to go. I was so proud of how un-stressed and happy he was leaving the house in the morning.

Luckily I was able to pick him up at 12, since I don't start work 'til 1pm now and I was so relieved to see how happy he was. He had a great time, is happy that he has some of his good friends in his Homestead group, he's happy with his locker and already committed the lock combo to memory too. He was so chatty and obviously feeling relaxed about everything. Whew! So far, so good.

..............................

The heatwave in Victoria last week was awful and I've never felt more appreciative of having both air conditioning AND a swimming pool. I don't know how anybody without those things survived it. We left the air-con running continuously for 4 whole days and nights! We've never done that before.

It was only at work that I got a little taste of reality, unfortunately the little portable machine simply wasn't up to the job, but it was still better than nothing at all and at least I was not there for too long. I work 1-5 Monday to Friday now.

Today, it's a beautiful balmy and breezy 29 degrees and we have all the windows and doors open. The fresh air is lovely.